


Bad Things Come in Small Packages

by Daegaer



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Demon Summoning, Demonic Hierarchy, Demonic Powers, Demons, Gen, flies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 22:44:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19282726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: Crowley comes across an amateur demon-summoner looking for an altogether bigger fish.





	Bad Things Come in Small Packages

Crowley felt what he liked to think of as his spider-sense* tingling. He could tell that someone was invoking evil in his vicinity, trying to attract the attention of beings beyond all mortal ken. _What the hell_ , he thought. It would be an amusing end to the day. He tracked the thin thread of evil yearnings down, wandering through an overgrown cemetery and blessing in irritation as his shoes got muddy. He paused at the door of the church, noting how ivy had twined over all the stonework. The door had been locked, and forced open. It felt very strongly as if the building had been deconsecrated. A perfect place for some amateur demon-summoning. He slipped in and peered around, the darkness within being no obstacle to his sight. The pews had all been removed, probably to grace an obnoxiously _authentic_ and expensive café. The tiles were too plain and boring to have been salvaged; they were safely cool under foot. Invisible and silent, he crept up towards the flickering candlelight at the head of the church where a dark-hooded figure stood, chanting.

His idiotic would-be client, a young man in his early twenties, was drawing mystical shapes in the air with a long dagger that he had probably bought on the internet, calling on the spirits of the cardinal directions and various naughty angels whom Crowley had last seen plummeting sulphur-wards with horribly surprised looks on their faces. Crowley shook his head in dismay. Honestly, what _were_ they teaching kids these days? Polyester robes? Not even an imp would be seen dead getting summoned by someone wearing such an abomination unto the gods of fashion. The black candles marking out the pentagram were good quality, though. He'd probably nicked his mum's birthday vouchers to buy them from John Lewis.

The protective wards were ridiculously underpowered; Crowley didn't even feel a tickle as he carefully stepped into the pentagram, ready to appear dramatically. The moron hadn't even drawn the sigils in the centre correctly, preferring to sketch out a crude representation of a door. Twit. _And_ he couldn't pronounce Latin. Crowley rocked back and forth on his heels and toes, hissing a tune through his teeth, waiting for a plea of _Come forth!_ or _Fuck me, is the devil never showing up?_ or anything to break the growing monotony.

The Latin was rising to a crescendo of obscenities and promises; Crowley had always tuned this part out as being totally irrelevant. The human only ever had one thing Hell was interested in, all the rest was just words. He slipped his sunglasses into his pocket. Might as well give the customer the demonic appearance they were after, he thought. Then he paused as the idiot took something out from beneath the tacky robes.

It was a human hand.

Now, Crowley had had long experience of humans and what they could and did do to each other, and knew what the constituent parts of a human looked like, even when they came separated. This was waxy in appearance and looked rather old, but it was definitely a real hand. On the other, er, hand, he thought, it couldn't possibly be a _real_ \- 

The idiot chanted some more, and the fingers of the hand all lit by themselves like a particularly unpleasant novelty candle.

_Shit. Shit_ , Crowley thought, his eyes wide. Somehow this idiot had got hold of a real hand of glory. He began mentally replaying the actual words of the chant, just in case – oh _shit_. The idiot came over and carefully placed the hand of glory in the pentagram, right between Crowley's feet. The outline of the door began to glow blood red.

"Come forth!" the idiot shrieked. "I call you from the pits of Hell! Beelzebub, Beelzebub, I summon you, come to me!"

"Oh, _shit!_ " Crowley yelled, forgetting to stay invisible and diving out of the pentagram as flames shot up all around the outline of the door. He did a full roll and ended up at the wall as the idiot said - 

"What-"

\- and the newly formed door to Hell slammed open with a roar of fire and the screams of the damned, and when silence returned a voice Crowley really didn't want to hear on earth said,

"I am come. Who callzz me?"

Crowley peeped up and watched Beelzebub look around with an expression of annoyance and distaste at the surroundings. The dark eyes, currently only with a hint of multi-facetedness, settled on the gaping human idiot, who was, Crowley saw in horror, grinning like a fool.

"Mortal," Beelzebub said. "Where izz the wizard that hath zzommoned me? Thy mazzter, knave, where be he?"

"Oh, _man_ , it worked," he said. "I got something! What are you? Some sort of spirit? A sprite? I didn't expect to get anything so –" he giggled.

Beelzebub paused.

"Zzo -? Zzo . . . what prezzizzely?"

Crowley groaned quietly. Beelzebub tended to scrub up, on the rare occasions when a trip to earth was mandated, merely because run-of-the-mill enchanters, necromancers and demonologists tended to have a bit more sense and call on people significantly further down – or up, depending on how you looked at these things – the food chain. The Big Guys tended to be called on by, well, big guys, who had important matters of state to discuss, and many souls to throw into the pot. The Princes of Hell liked to look their best on such occasions. Sadly, _Beelzebub's_ idea of best – face clear of infestations of fly-eggs, person smelling only faintly of sulphur, neat formal clothing only a century or so out of date, somewhat diminutive form – all gave the unfortunate impression to inattentive mortal viewers of –

"No, you're a fairy, right? They're probably cute."

"Ung," Crowley said, chewing on his own sleeve. _He_ saw a vast and ageless power, radiating barely restrained hatred and desire for revenge on Heaven. _Humans_ , he thought. _So blessed oblivious_.

"Can you pass on a message? I was hoping to summon a real demon; I want Beelzebub."

"I _am_ Beelzebub."

The idiot actually laughed. "Why would a Lord of Demons want to appear looking so _cute?_ "

With a flick of a finger the protective sigils vanished, and the Prince of Hell stepped forwards towards him. There was a perceptible buzzing in the air as flies began to gather.

"Cute? What izz thizz?"

"Like a kitten," he said, and paused slightly as a very uncute scowl rippled across Beelzebub's face. "You know – sweet. Small. Harmless. Cute."

"Zzweet?" Beelzebub said, and the walls resonated. "Zzmall?" The floor cracked and Crowley could clearly see fire glowing beneath. " _Harmlezz?_ I will have _rezzpect_ , mortal!" The voice was no longer much like a human voice as it rose in volume and the crowd of flies multiplied a thousand thousand-fold, rising up to cover the no-longer laughing idiot. "I am the Prince of Demonzz, the Chief Lieutenant of Luzzifer! I am the Abomination of Ekron, the Inciter of Warzz, the Inzzpirer of Tyrantzz! I bring luzzt from chazztity, I bring murder from love! I am Beelzebub and I am not _cute!_ "

Pieces of masonry crashed down around Crowley as he curled into a defensive ball. When the screaming stopped he cautiously stood and looked at Beelzebub standing before the fly-blown, maggot-riddled heap of meat that had been the idiotic demon summoner. The clouds of flies were lessening, bit by bit.

"I am the Lord of the Fliezz," Beelzebub said in a small, dignified voice, "and my feelingzz have really been hurt."

It is often cooler to stand your ground come what may and face all-comers while the clouds gather overhead. It is, however, also good sense to know when groveling is the better part of valour. Crowley looked from the corpse to Beelzebub and abased himself. His speech for the next several minutes did not contain any reference to anything any now-departed human in the vicinity might have been stupid enough to say but did contain many, many instances of phrases like _Most Dread Lord_ , and _High and Puissant Prince_ , not to mention, _this lowly being before Your Mighty Countenance_ until finally the buzzing was back to being merely background noise and Beelzebub said,

"Crowley. Are all mortalzz become zzo dizzcourteouzz?"

"Ah, yezz, er, yes, lord. They don't really believe in anything any more, not even the evidence of their own eyes. Not even when they summon someone. Which he absolutely shouldn't have. That was very rude and I hope your flies had a good dinner."

"No belief," Beelzebub said. "No wonder the zzoul wazz watery. Thizz wandering to and fro on the earth you do, zztretching your hand out againzzt the children of humanity, Crowley?"

"Yes, lord?" Crowley said, suddenly despairingly sure the next words would be _It doezzn't zzeem zzo hard, I think I'll give it a go._

"I don't know how you zztick it. What a God-awful place, if you'll pardon my Enochian." Beelzebub walked back to the sketched-out doorway and gestured. It flew open, revealed steps down into flames. 

"I am proud to serve as I was first ordered to, lord," Crowley said humbly.

Beelzebub made a noise like a million flies going _huh_ and vanished. Crowley sagged against a pillar in relief. He wasn't due to give a status update for _decades_ , thank G- er, thankfully. In the meantime he'd do his best to forget that the really senior demons even existed.

"The demon summoning worked," he said absently to the deceased idiot. "I wouldn't try it again, if I were you." He slid his sunglasses back on and staggered out of the church. By the time he reached the door he had regained his confident saunter. _No more messing round with Satanism for me,_ Crowley thought. _It's far too dangerous._ Hanging round with an angel seemed like a walk in the park by comparison.

 

*This always confused other demons, who felt constrained to point out that he was a snake.


End file.
